


Dating advice for Hogun

by Keenir



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Dating Advice, Extremis is Pepper's Other Guy, Gen, Pepper thinks its hilarious, Tony Stark is being softspoken...for Tony Stark, Tony's trying to help
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-11
Updated: 2013-08-11
Packaged: 2017-12-23 00:46:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/920005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keenir/pseuds/Keenir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe it was a mistake to ask Tony Stark for dating advice, but Hogun doesn't see how things could get worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Let me help you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [murdur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/murdur/gifts).



> For Murdur, who was right - Hogun/Sigyn is a very rare pairing.

**Location: Avenger Tower**

"I'm sure Captain America would not have suggested your buddy give the lady a box of chocolates if he knew that every Asgardian in the history of ever, is allergic," Tony said.

"It is fortunate that Jane stopped anyone from eating them," Fandral said.

"Not that it helps our friend Hogun in his pursuit of the lady Sigyn," Thor said, "when she sneezes all over him and the box."

"That just means no chocolates and no flowers," Tony said. "I got an idea. Leave it to me."

"Are you sure, Stark?" Thor asked.

"Positive."

"You may wish to begin your attempts at a later time, however," Fandral said.

"He's _still_ moping?" Tony asks. "I thought you guys were never unhappy for more than five minutes." _Space Vikings, after all._

Fandral raised his eyebrows and deadpan-asked Tony "Have you met Loki as yet?"

"Good point. Chuckles wasn't a good guy," right before going in the room that had been loaned from Stark Towers to a visiting Hogun; Volstagg and Fandral had the neighboring rooms.

Hogun was still sitting at the kitchen counter, where he'd been an hour ago.

Tony came over and picked up the glass that was in front of the Asgardian. "Whoa, I've had plenty of hair of the dog that bit you, but you, my friend, are drinking the entire pack."

No reply.

"I know you're awake. Past experience's how I know someone sitting like you are now, is most certainly not asleep or unconscious."

"You bother me."

"I bother everybody. I bother me sometimes," Tony said. "Look, I said I'd help you, and I will. Just because you struck out with this girl -"

"Woman."

"That doesn't mean you can't try again. Just gotta get back on the horse."

Hogun glared at him.

"Wrong metaphor."

"A metaphor Sif would kill you for."

"Not gonna ask," Tony decided. _Given how inventive Asgardians can be at finding things to use as weapons, I'm gonna let that sleeping dog lie._ "Okay, tell me about her. Not Sif, I mean tell me about the woman you're pining for."

"She does not smell like pine," Hogun says.

"So noted. What's her name?" Tony asked; Steve had mentioned it, but this was part of the Tony Stark process right here.

"Her name is Sigyn," Hogun says.

"And?" Tony asks.

Hogun just looks at him.

"Lets start small. What's her job, what does she do?"

"She refills our glasses."

"Good, good," Tony says. "What else can you tell me about her?"

"She is a woman."

"Anything else? Anything at all?"

"Nothing useful."

_Ya know, I'm really starting to understand why Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose so much._ "Trust me on this, buddy, that's fine for a one-night stand. But if you want this to last - and I'm pretty sure you do, and not just because of the whole multi-millennial lifespans thing - then you need to know _something_ about her."

From where she stands in the doorway, Pepper can't help but snerk at that.

"Ha ha, come to help?" Tony asks her as her snerk grows by Hulkish leaps and bounds.

"Oh no," Pepper says, one hand waving. "No, clearly you have this under control," just barely shy of hysterical laughter. And she walks off, not relenting by the sound of it.

Once the door closed, Tony said, "Okay, lets go back to that whole 'nothing useful' bit. What're some of the not-useful things you know about her?" _So help me if you've been stalking her._

"She is allergic to weapons," Hogun said.

"Pacifist?" _A hippie Space Viking?_

"No. Baldur is allergic to mistletoe. Sif and Thor are allergic to perfume. Sigyn is allergic to weapons."

_Huh. This puts a whole new spin on why Thor came back blotchy from his date with the lovely doc Foster._ "That'll be useful. Anything else?"

"She wears trousers well. Better than Sif does."

"Not that you're biased or anything," Tony jokes.

Hogun grabs him by the throat and holds him there long enough for Stark to realize that the only way he's getting out, is to be let go of.

After a while, Hogun lets go.

"It was a figure of speech," Tony says. "And a compliment. And the fact you wouldn't hit on your buddy."

"Loki," is all Hogun says in answer to that.

"Yeah, point, but he's weird. Now Sigyn...tell me, what does she like? Books, music, posters of puppies being held by firemen?"

"I do not know," Hogun says.

"How can you not know?"

"I see her only when she is refilling our glasses; if she sees me otherwhen, I do not know of it. We have no friends in common, but one, and our parents are dead."

He opens his mouth to reply, then shuts it. Given that Tony can still remember going to the house where Pepper's folks lived, and asking them for their daughter's hand - ignoring for the moment that she'd already said yes - before arranging anything.... _Tradition._ "Okay. Okay, we can work with that. Who is this one friend in common? If we get him or her on our side, you're golden," and then stops and wonders if that was Sif, or a fleece or something.

"Loki."

"Well shit."


	2. Conference

**Location: Primary exercise room, Avenger Tower**

"It is a tricky question."

"Verily, Thor," Sif said, and dammit if she didn't make it sound like 'no shit, buddy' with how she said it. Given that her next move was to knock Thor on his ass, Tony suspected that was the aim. "But a well-meaning question," as she helped Thor back to his feet. "One we should be party to the solving of."

Thor didn't look 100% convinced.

"I'm next," Pepper said.

"Whoa, are you sure," Tony asked, placing what he intended to be - and what he hoped she read as - a hand of comfort and reassurance, on her arm as she was about to stand up from the exercise room bench beside him. "I mean, you know what the doc said."

Pepper gave him a look, one of both tired humor and understanding and remove-your-hand-sir. "Tony, one, if you call everyone with a medical degree 'doc' we've got a bigger problem than I thought. Two, Bruce has been giving me some pointers on how to do more than do yoga with this in me," two fingers tapping her neck.

"Do I need to have some words with the big guy?" he asked, not seriously though, because he trusted Bruce about as far as the Other Guy could throw a puppy.

"What words?" Thor asked, not sure why he was being invoked in what seemed a marital dispute.

"Other big guy," Tony said. "You're right, Pepper, this'll get confusing. Name tags!" he said while snapping his fingers. "I'll make everyone name tags."

Sif smiled as Pepper rose and stood opposite her on the room-sized mat. "Finally, a challenge," Sif said.

Thor looked bemused.

"I'll, try not to burn you," Pepper said, picking up a heat-resistant _bo_ and for all that her Extremis made armor superfluous, she felt a little like Donatello. When Sif held out a hand, she tossed a matching _bo_ over to her.

 _Burn?_ "A fun challenge," Sif corrected herself. And when Pepper swung first, Sif met her efforts with equal vigor. "Should the conversation wait? Not all in training can speak while wielding arms, even on Asgard."

"I'm good. So, what should we do for Hogun?"

"Bring Loki here."

"No," Tony said. "I'm gonna call foul on that one - not that move, Pepper, that was a thing of beauty - but Loki's still in time-out, and we're superheroes, we can solve this without him!"

"Tony," Pepper said.

"Not because you hang the moon for me or complete me or any of those other totally true statements. Because you defeated a supervillain ; and if that doesn't make you a superhero, we're all in trouble." A big grin showed up on Tony's face. "He saves her life - Hogun's the hero of the hour and everything."

Thor nodded. "It could work."

"I underestimated how good a friend - you can - be, Stark, to sacrifice - so many - loyal troops - for - Hogun," Sif said, interspersing pauses to focus on particular attacks from Pepper. Seeing red trace-thin lines across the woman's hands and neck, Sif said, "Your magic is showing."

Pepper took a few steps back and nearly dropped her _bo_.

Sif did not press any advantage, just straightened and waited patiently for Pepper to be ready again.

Pepper held up a hand to reassure before Tony could ask if she was okay. "Just need to - breathe. Not gonna spit fire." _Haven't done that yet._

Once he was sure Pepper was okay, Tony repeated: "Sacrifice? How did we go from being a hero, to sacrifice?"

"Whether you launch a raid or a proper invasion," Sif said, "you will lose a great many of your men as you press far enough into Asgard for Sigyn's life to be threatened."

"Stark's loyal men are unliving machines," Thor said.

"And they were all destroyed," Tony said. "I blew them all up."

"After a big battle," Pepper said, feeling it would go over better with the addition of that particular fact. "Where I destroyed my first supervillain, as Tony just said."

Tony nodded and smiled proudly and tender at her.

"Then you need Loki," Sif said.

"He would do many things," Thor told her, "but he would not invade Asgard."

"But he could _persuade_ her to come to Midgard -"

"Earth"

"- where a raid would be more conceivable," Sif said, somehow making 'persuade' sound like it was just barely this side of being a four-letter-word.

Tony groaned. "Really? That's it? The two of you are turning tail, showing your belly, all that shit that comes with giving up."

"We are not giving up, Stark," Thor said.

"Then try thinking of a solution that doesn't take a begging bowl to Loki." And _that_ gave Tony an idea. "Dinner!"

"You just ate," Pepper points out.

"No, I mean Hogun takes Sigyn out on a date. I'll get the reservations ready - you guys have any other allergies I should know about? Fish, lamb, pie, haggis?"

"I do not believe I have had a decent pie haggis since I was a boy," Thor said.

Pepper couldn't not smile at the look on Tony's face.

"And how will you arrange it?" Sif asked. 

"Simple. I call up the restaurant, reserve a room, have them put in lots of romantic candles -" Tony said.

"Candles are romantic?"

"Sure."

"We use them to read. And you did not answer my question," Sif said.

"I did. Call up the restar-"

"You are a friend of Thor, and thus Hogun will go with you to the restaurant. But Sigyn is no friend of yours."

"Lady, I'm Tony Stark, I'm everybody's friend."

Thor answered, "Not Loki's."

"Jarvis, what was the name of that song again?"

" _Whereever you go, there you are_ , sir," Jarvis said.

Pepper asked, "Is there anything we can do, to help Hogun and Sigyn, that wouldn't neccessarily involve Loki?"

"Thor, Friend Of Man," Sif said, addressing him by one of his titles.

Thor didn't exactly look cheerful about the prospect.

"Something wrong?" Tony asked.

"There is one solution," Thor said. "But I do not believe it to be something you or the other Avengers would approve of."

"How bad could it be?" he asked before he recalled some of the less-than-popular things the Earth Vikings weren't afraid to do.

"A Hunt," Thor and Sif said at the same time.


End file.
